WHO recommends this antiretroviral for the first time to prevent HIV

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommended this Monday, for the first time, the use of Lenacapavir, a long-acting antiretroviral that is administered every six months, as a tool to prevent HIV, a decision he considered "historic" and that could redefine the global response to the epidemic.

The announcement came during the opening ceremony of the 13th International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Science, which began Monday in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, and will bring together more than 4,000 participants until July 17.

"Although we don't yet have a vaccine, Lenacapavir is the closest: a long-acting antiretroviral that has been shown to prevent nearly all infections in people at risk." said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement accompanying the release of the agency's new guidelines.

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The publication of these guidelines, along with the recent approval of the drug by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), "represents a crucial step forward," according to Tedros.

"The WHO will work with countries and partners to ensure this innovation reaches communities as quickly as possible," he stated, emphasizing that these "powerful" medicines will only be "useful" if they can be delivered to those who need them.

The IAS conference opened in Kigali with a call to ensure equitable and faster access to new prevention tools and long-acting treatments, in a context marked by growing financial challenges worldwide.

"The sudden withdrawal of funding for HIV programs is causing serious disruptions to access to life-saving services in many countries. For more than two decades, sustained investments have enabled groundbreaking progress. We cannot allow that progress to be lost," Tedros warned at the opening of the conference.

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IAS President Beatriz Grinsztejn lamented the closure of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), while He called on governments to make "firm commitments" to finance and integrate these innovations into health systems.

"Our HIV movement is being tested once again. How we choose to react and respond will, in many ways, determine the course of the future," Grinsztejn emphasized.

The conference opened shortly after the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) warned on July 10 that if US funding cuts to AIDS prevention and treatment continue, there could be six million new HIV infections and four million additional HIV-related deaths by 2030.

Lenacapavir was considered by Science magazine as the main scientific advance of 2024, Although it is not a vaccine, it is the closest thing science has found in more than 40 years of fighting an epidemic that has caused the death of more than 40 million people.

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